The other night Mrs. Brainfart and I were out shopping. As usual, when she goes shopping, I find myself breaking away and finding something of interest for me to keep me occupied while she looks at shoes, handbags, and other groovy stuff that ladies dig. In this situation, I found myself wondering around Kohl’s shopping center and my wife met up with me at our usual rendezvous point: the t-shirts.
As most of you know, these days place like Kohl’s, Target, and even (yuck) Wal-Mart has a huge T-Shirt island stocked with shirts that appeal to guys (and girls) like us of the hard rock/metal/dork variety. So here I am, looking through all of the cool new Star Wars shirts, the dorky (yet trendy) Nintendo/old school video game shirts and then all of the sudden, there it is: a Metallica Ride the Lightning shirt. Then I see a Guns N’ Roses shirt. Then I see a Ramones shirt. Then I see a Def Leppard raglan shirt with the old school High N’ Dry logo on it. What is this place? Mrs. Brainfart and I looked at the shirts together and then kind of laughed them off and headed on home.
On the way home, we had a pretty in depth conversation about this. How did this make me feel? It’s really kind of funny because I can honestly say that I felt a mix of emotions from this. At first I thought, “Hey, this is kind of cool. I mean, who would’ve ever thought that you could one day walk into a family department store and buy a Metallica shirt or a Ramones shirt or a Guns N’ Roses shirt?” Suddenly, another thought kicked in and had me feeling, “Wait a minute. This is why we see people like the Kardashians running around in Slayer shirts. This is why we see Lindsay Lohan in a Ramones shirt. This is also why we see Taylor Swift sporting a Metallica t-shirt and my best bet is that if you asked any of these Hollywood starlets to name more than 2 songs from each band, they’d look at you with a look as empty as their Starbucks cup that formerly hosted their triple double venti latte with no whip.
A part of me thought that this was actually kind of cool. 25 or more years ago if you told me I could walk into a family department store and see these things for sale, I would’ve never believed you. With that being said, Mrs. Brainfart asked me, “Don’t you feel that this is actually kind of cheesy and that it cheapens the legacy of these bands?” This really made me think hard about it and in the long run, I totally believe that it’s a double edged sword. What do I mean by that? Let me explain.
There are totally two sides to this sword. One side of the sword is that, yes, the legacy of these bands seems somewhat cheapened. Seeing hipster kids walking around in Misfits, Metallica, and Ramones shirts not knowing what the fuck they’re even wearing still kills me. Its like, “Ohhh, look at this cool design. I’ll get that wear it and look hip” not even realizing that at one time to wear the Ramones crest on your chest was a sign of allegiance to a band that wasn’t ever remotely trendy, cool, or popular in modern pop culture. Now? Wearing a Ramones t-shirt is akin to wearing a fucking some Urban Outfitters clothing or something. It’s a fashion plate.
On the other hand, I remember being at a Subway and this young girl, 19 or so, was sporting a Ramones shirt. I looked over at her and I said, “I like your shirt.” She said, “Thanks.” I said, “So what’s your favorite song?” Her reply was, “I get it. I look young and you think that because I’m wearing a Ramones shirt that I must be doing it because it’s trendy. My favorite album is Rockets to Russia but my all time favorite song is “I Don’t Wanna Go Down to the Basement.” Insert foot in mouth. So yeah, maybe having these shirts available in standard shopping places just makes it easier for young fans to get shirts. I even once heard a story this young kid bought a Metallica shirt from Target once and because the design was cool went out and bought Ride the Lightning and that this became a catalyst for him to discover classic heavy metal and stop listening to modern metal.
At the end of it all, I guess it’s all just a sense of perspective. We older folk could look at this as cheapening the legacy of these bands and it being cheesy but another could look at it as a way to spread the legacy of the bands of our generations to a whole new generation to discover and love. There really seems to be on right or wrong answer so I guess it depends on if you’re a glass half empty or a glass half full kind of person.
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